Betweed

I’ve done a lot of tangling lately but not a lot of blogging. A lot on my mind but no energy to blog about it all, probably because of having so much on my mind. On the other hand, I’ve managed to upload pictures of some of my recent work, including the most recent Made by Joey Challenge plus a few stragglers:

Okay, so the shading’s a little sloppy, but it was fun. I’ve always loved B’Twined. And I figured it would enjoy playing with its BFFs, Betweed and Betwixt.

Joey Challenge 120

Girdy is another great fun one. I tried something a little different on the right side — but I got myself mixed up drawing the “platforms” and ended up with a line through the beams. Oh well. I also used some Skye, a new one from a Diva Challenge a while back.That column with spirals is a new one I came up with that I call Psiral. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually post the step-out one of these days.

Joey Challenge 119

The tangle of focus for this one is Gnarly. When I was a kid, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was big, so “gnarly” seemed like “current” slang. It was only later that I realized that all their lingo was recycled 50s/60s surfer slang. I thought it would be fun to do some ocean themed stuff. So here are some waves and squids and … jellyfish? Weird oysters? Caviar? I don’t know for sure.

Joey Challenge 117

Socc is the focus here. I worked on this one while I was in Kansas City for the AP English Language reading. Have you ever spent 8 hours a day for a week grading AP Exam essays? Well, I have.

Well, that’s all the ones I can find files of for now. I also did the Maryhill one but I don’t know where it ended up.

As I understand it, this is the penultimate Joey Roman Numeral challenge. But hey, I can always continue them: it’s not like I’ll run out of Roman Numerals, although it will probably be hard to string something like MDCCCLXXII.

I decided pretty quickly that the big spaces above and below the numeral should be great big barber poles, then it was pretty easy to decide on barber poling the rest of the string as well. I tried a variety of patterns for the poles — not certain how well it worked, but it was interesting. There’s also Bunzo and Shattuck — both of these are ones I initially had a really hard time with but have really enjoyed now that I have the hang of it. There were two new-to-me background tangles — Papyrus and Cheesecloth. I like the look of Cheesecloth but I’m not so sure I enjoyed drawing MDCCCLXXII teeny tiny lines. Also, the Cadent didn’t show up quite as well as I would have liked.

Before I talk about this ZIA, I want to introduce you to my daughter. She’s the youngest of my three kids, two and a half years old. We call her “Lala.” There is no way I could describe how incredible she is: she’s bright, funny, self-confident, smart. Here are some representative conversations with her:

Anyway, since this new tangle is based on the letter “L,” I figured it would be fun to play around with the name “Lala.” So the ribbon at the bottom is a tangelation on Eke with a cursive “l” and “a.” I also tangleated “Ix” with the Anglo-Saxon runes “lagu” (l) and “Ac” (a). Speaking of which, at some point I really should post the rest of my Tangle-Saxon things. I’ve also got something — to be honest, I don’t know what it is — with “lala” in cursive with auras around it.

The centerpiece is, of course, the new tangle Ellish which I think its pretty groovy. I played around with a couple of variations on it. The description of the tangle calls it “Betweedy,” which I don’t really see, but I put in a little Betweedy something in it. It reminds me more of Auraknot, so I did one of those. Oh, and I tried to do a straight-line version of it below the main Ellish. It did not work the way I’d planned, but it’s something I may work on.

All week it’s been either raining or looking like it’s about to rain. Today (Friday) and tomorrow are the only days in the next two weeks that didn’t have rain forecast. Welcome to Spring, Texas style.

Did I go a little overboard with it? Probably. But it was fun. For the string, I started by tracing the lid to one of my kids’ snack cups in 4 interlocking circles, then drew a freehand loopy spiral running through it. The result was the sort of wild double spiral thing I think I ended up with.

The Tangles:

BB Okay, weird tangent — This is one of the first tangles I taught myself way back a couple of months ago. Later, when I read the description on TanglePatterns I was surprised to see it described as looking like “a picket fence gone wild.” I’d always pictured it as an uneven string of disc-shaped beads seen from the side. Interesting the different tricks perspective will get you when it comes to tangles.

Binda

Btl Joos

La Bel When I copied this one out the first time, I wasn’t real careful with my handwriting and spent a while wondering why this tangle was called “label.” I added a little hook thing to it to make little tear drop shapes.

Mooka

Organic This one didn’t come out quite like I wanted it to — the colored in part is supposed to look like a hole the leaves are coming out of — I didn’t get that this time.

Seven tangles suggested this one, and I think I used all of them. My Kewpie doll can be sent to my office at UT Arlington, in Carlisle Hall. These sere a good mix of ones I’d never used and ones that I consider some of my favorites. They are:

Betweed One of my favorites

Demi My first time using this one. To add a little interest, I turned the striping around on it.

Gingham Truth in advertising on this one.

Mei Meh.

Mooka Gotta admit that this isn’t one of my faves. Still, I think I managed to do okay with it.

Ragz Another one I really like. This would be a fun one to monotangle some time.

Zinger I must admit that I had scoffed at this one a bit. Aren’t tangles supposed to be non-representational, thereby disqualifying ones that are pretty much just pictures of flowers? But I ended up having more fun than I expected drawing it.